Steel Within, Steel Without
by Dantegrey
Summary: [AU] Iron Warrior, Heretek, Monster, Traitor, the list was long. But Steel So ur was not a happy Astartes, betrayed by everything he trusted, he tried to fought back. And the Universe sent him to a different, unique place, a place where he can become something else, something he never believed he could be.


_Somewhere in the_ _W_ _arp._

In hindsight, telling the Fateweaver, Daemonic Prince of Tzeentch, to go fuck itself and its whore of a godmother, was not the best of the ideas.

Steel So´ur was not a happy Astartes. Steel was a bitter Astartes with a chip, the size of a Titan, on his shoulder and a massive desire to burn the entire universe to ashes. With luck, something worthy would grow from the bloody ashes of the collection of idiots and fools that populated the place. Ah, and the Warp is not better. The only difference was that the inhabitants of the Warp, didn't have the bloody decency to stay death after you slain them.

Steel was against joining Horus and his childish tantrum, he was against betraying everything they have done until now. Olympia was a bloody tragedy, he would always feel dirty and unclean for what they did in their own bloody planet. But instead of using that tragedy as a starting point, use it as a way to set the Legion straight and into a new and better dawn, Lord Perturabo went and fucked it up royally, by joining the Traitor legions and starting a bloody war all over the Universe. The rest of the races of the universe must be laughing their bloody asses off, at the picture of the Empire of Humankind being torn apart by the same people that has built it among the stars.

Istvaan V was a colossal screw up, but Steel was a loyal Iron Warrior, even if Steel wanted nothing but slam his Thunder hammer in the dense skull of his Primarch and see if that clears his brooding mind back to his real self. Steel obeyed and deployed his battle brothers, killing anything that come his way, with the usual cold and logical efficiency that made the Iron Warriors feared in all the galaxy. That is how things must be done, but no, Perturabo got feed with all the nonsense that other Primarchs and their Legions spluttered out of their gums and keep growing as a brooding asshole when there was a lot to work to do, instead of caring about what the others could think of their Legion.

The Iron Warriors were called the Corpse Grinders, a nickname that they earned because the massive casualties that all the Imperial regiments suffer under their command, so high, that some regiments began to mutiny before serve under them. Bunch of wankers, in Steel´s opinion, the bloody universe has forgotten what a siege was, how expensive a real, constant and devastating siege truly was. The Iron Warriors were siege experts without equal, so they know how really expensive; in blood, flesh and ammo; a siege could be, specially if they were trying to broke down the walls of a technologically advanced civilization. Walls and barricades does not fall by hitting them hard with an axe, like the World Devourers seems to believe, neither by appearing from nowhere, shooting down a couple of guards, put some charges and running back to safety, like the Raven Guard was convinced they won wars.

Frankly, Steel has never cared two shits about what the rest of the Legions thought of them. They are the best when it comes to building fortress and destroying fortress to the ground. To the Warp with the Imperial Fists, those cretins would flagellate themselves before admitting that they could make pretty castles but they had no idea about how to truly defend a position. Even so, Steel felt a sour taste in his mouth during all the Istvaan disaster. This was not what the Legion stood for. Where, on the bloody stars, did something like this enter in the Unbreakable Litany?, centuries living by that code, that real, solid and good code, to end up spitting on it as soon as they fucked up once.

Sure, Olympia was a bloody mess, killing your own kind was never pretty. But there was a line that should never be crossed, and what Horus did in Istvaan and the war that took place after that, now, that was the stupidest idea that Steel has listened in all his century and half or so, life. It was mind blogging, entire Legions, betraying the Empire, for what?, the promises of the War master Horus, who by the way, has made pacts with Demons, has betrayed his own bloody father, has killed his own brothers and was ready to plunge the galaxy back into the stone age.

And people call Steel, a bitter man. Well, he could be a bitter Astartes, he admitted that, but if he was feed up, he walks to the shooting gallery or the Training cages and vent his frustrations by tearing some targets to pieces, heck, he will pick up a Sicaran Venarator and go hunting some tanks. Steel will not turn upside down the galaxy, like the intestines of a drunken grox, and just kill his Primarch because he was a bad Primarch that did not share all his secrets and plans with his commanders.

Still, Steel was loyal to the Iron Warriors, he believed in the Unbreakable Litany, Iron was in them, and through them, they will survive this massive screw up. Not precisely how Steel would have liked it, but at the end of the Horus Heresy, as everybody and their mothers started to call all that debacle, like it couldn't be otherwise; the entire Legion has to run for their bloody lives, when the Siege of Terra failed and they had the rest of the Loyal legions hounding their asses.

During all that civil war, Steel grow convinced of two things:

1- Demons could go the warp, close the door and fuck themselves hard, long and without lube for what he cared. They were not worthy of paying attention, they were full of empty promises and anything else.

2- Perturabo was a bloody idiot.

Long gone the man who conquered Olympia, the man who was the supreme Warsmith, instead, they had a bloody brooding bastard who rammed them though a black hole and toss them into the biggest mechanized war that the Crusade saw in thousands of years.

First, that cocksucker of Fulgrim managed to convince Perturabo that there was a wonderful, massive super weapon in a Crone World, Iydris. It was a bloody trap and to scape from there, Perturabo ram the fleet into a Black Hole, exiting in the high orbit of Tallarn, a paradise world. Under the paradisaical surface, there was a blasted thing called, the Black Oculus, and how can not be otherwise, Perturabo salivated at the idea of the thing, he wanted to be a daemon too. Stupid and foolish purpose, a demon is a bloody slave of the Warp or, if he was stupid enough, a lackey for one of the Four Chaos gods.

Millions, literally, millions of armored vehicles later, and they turned Tallarn into a radioactive wasteland, and had to move to Terra, without nothing gained from the destruction. Horus was pushing into conquering Terra in one massive attack with all they have. Again, they failed, and had to run before the counterattack killed them all. They had to run like scared bitches to the Eye of the Terror, the worst idea Steel eared in his life. Olympia fall by the way, instead of rerouting the bulk of the Legion to protect Olympia from the vengeful troops of the Empire, Perturabo run to the Eye of Terror and started to build a massive trap in Sebastus IV. Two years later, the battle-brothers in Olympia chose to detonate their entire missile stockpile before letting the planet fall. Steel was proud of them, and growing frustrated and resentful to the cretin that was leading the Legion like a rude child that wanted a candy and throw tantrums each time he fucked up.

Ironically, Sebastus IV work like a charm. Well, like a charm for Perturabo of course, the rest of the Legion had to deal with an invasion of Imperial Fists. Three weeks fighting and harvesting corpses of those assholes, so Perturabo could become a Daemonic Prince. Meanwhile, Olympia was declared Perdita, a planet lost and forgotten, and the battle brothers that fought to defend their home-world, were forgotten and abandoned, because Perturabo wanted to be a Daemon. Steel almost pushed the self destruct button of the Eternal Fortress that day.

Perturabo became a demon, and the entire; what´s lefts of his series of screw ups, would be better said; Legion has to run like scared bitches, again, back to the Eye of Terror, so Perturabo could pick up some nice digs for his Daemonic ass. He chose Medrengard, and Steel suspected that he could have chosen an asteroid equally well; Perturabo was so high in his Daemonic status that build himself the biggest lair in the middle of Medrengard and told the rest of the Warsmiths to do the same. Just like that. Leaving the planet to the surviving Warsmiths and whatever was left of the companies, who lose no time in building themselves more and more Fortress and buildings.

In a century, Medrengard was a huge, ugly, floating fortress; fill to the brim with slaves and colossal warships hanging from the towers that pierced the black and demonic skies of the world. Steel would have loved to cry, really, he would have loved to cry at the image. True, Olympia was a bloody fortress, it was as bitter and cold as the Iron Warriors that lived there, but Medrengard?. Medrengard was a bloody joke compared to Olympia. Olympia was a mountain and stone covered world, Medrengard was a smog covered nightmare, where the Iron Warrior´s Warsmiths beat the shit out of each other, for nothing. Comfortably sitting in his bloody fortress, the Daemonic Prince laughed his ass off about his scions, seeing their disputes and battles, like the childish games they really were. At the end, he was the Primarch, and all of them would obey. Until then, culling the weak was a good time to pass time and wait for the inevitable Fall of the Corpse-Emperor Empire.

Raged and embittered to the core, Steel refused to play that game, well, he really would have liked to refuse to play that game, but his company and him were juicy prey for the rest of the Companies. So, he had to accept the reality and build himself a nice, comfortable bunker, armed to the core and waited for the opportunity to strike and get himself a warship. Steel was going to run out of the bloody planet, this was just the absurd dream of a foolish and brooding rude child that knew nothing of true honor and responsibility. Perturabo lost any respect he could have with Steel and his Company. Centuries of warfare and at the end, he abandoned everything to became a slave of the warp and the whims of the Chaos gods. Much like that cretin of Horus, but Horus at least had the decency of dying. Perturabo abandoned his own home planet and run to became a Daemon Prince, then he run again to Medrengard and hide under his bed, laughing at the misfortune and fate of his own bloody scions.

Yes, Steel had nothing but contempt for his Primarch now; a deep, volcanic, contempt. But he was a Daemon Prince now, an existence that was a bit over the head of Steel, who considered the demons, little more than overgrown leeches. Immortal, cunning, and sickly stubborn leeches. Harder to kill, and they just went back to the Warp and return years or centuries later, if they are not summoned by name. Horus dabbled in things that he should have never dabbled and the consequences were a war that almost obliterated the human race.

As any sane mind would do, Steel started with a way to defend himself against these parasites of the warp. He couldn't care less about the Chaos gods or the idiotic wars of his fellow Warsmiths, although in a couple of centuries they started to appear another kind of leader among them, the Warpsmiths. Twisted parodies of the Techmarines that dealt with the Technological part of the Legions. Idiots that worked on the Demon Forges that started to proliferate in the worlds of the Eye of Terror. Steel wanted nothing to do with that jokes, enough Heretek he was to add daemonic problems to his works.

Steel was a Heretek; one that has deviated of the sacred dogmas of the Omnissiah; practically since day one. An embittered soul like his considered all the sacred techno-babble little more than a waste of time. Praying to the machine did nothing to fix the hole in the hull, a good soldering iron on the other hand was a real god send. Thanks to being possible the best Heavy vehicles builder of the Legion, along one of the few that knew how to fabricate Deredeo pattern Dreadnoughts, he has managed to dodge all the lousy Techpriests and Visoengineers that came after his head with their Skitarii or Legio cybernetica servitors. If anything, the Iron Warriors appreciated good war machines more than anything else, and Steel knew how to fabricate the best tanks and artillery platforms of the Legion.

More than once has he cursed his own talent, as he could have died along his true and loyal Battle-brothers in Olympia or Istvaan. Rumors said that a bunch of loyalists managed to scape and finally reached Terra, alerting the Emperor and giving him enough time to raise the defenses of the Imperial Castle and call at his side some defenders. Defenders that made the difference at the end. He really should have gone with them. Perhaps them he could have found something to do in the middle of the bad and distasteful joke that was his Legion those days.

Alas, those were useless whines; as soon as he got his hands on a Warship, he got the hell out of Medrengard and set sail to Olympia. It maybe Perdita, but the souls that perished in the defense of the home-world of the Iron Warriors should be honored adequately. Perturabo may be a stupid and brooding cretin, but Steel still believed in the Unbreakable Litany and he would perform an adequate burial on the surface of the destroyed planet.

It was the last thing he could do for his true Battle-brothers, they stood and defend the same place that originated them, even after the massacred that they commit under the directions of Perturabo. The pacification and extermination of most of the cities of Olympia was something that burned in the souls of the Iron Warriors. Or, better said, those that still remembers or cared about it. After the massive loses that the Legions suffered, recruitment has become a chore. And no, those pathetic slaves that feed the industries of Medrengard were not even worthy of being considered as potential recruits.

Steel maybe stubborn in that sense, but he would not create more false Iron Warriors like the rest of his fellow Warsmiths were doing, some of them even recurring to clone technology. That was stupid and useless, only the Emperor knows the secret of the gene-seed, cloning would always end in a defective copy, full of imperfections and mutations. The secret of the gene-seed was closely guarded by the Adeptus Mechanicus. There were rumors about an apothecary of the Emperor´s Children was deciphering the process of the gene-seed, but Steel was convinced that he was nothing but another megalomaniac trying to find a spot in the M31. It was harder than it looked.

Forced to recruit all kind of scum and other low lives; that he would have killed without a second thought before; to replenish his numbers, Steel traveled all over the broken Empire looking for something that could give him a lead about how to tell these Leeches to fuck off. In the shambles of the Empire, a ship like his had a lot of chances to move discretely, the Empire was big and was FUBAR for the last hundred or so years. Taking advantage of it, Steel moved in the shadows of the stars.

First step, Olympia, as he promised. Even, if he had to walk alone in the remnants of a wasteland, he would found the ruins of Olympia and pay respects to the real Iron Warriors that fought here. They followed the Unbreakable Litany to the very end, and that was something that Steel would forever respect and held in his heart. The Iron Warriors would never be lost, if the Unbreakable Litany was still in their hearts. Unfortunately, he was sure that he could be the only Iron Warrior alive that gives two fucks about the Unbreakable Litany.

He had quite the record. Warsmith, Heretek, Iron Warrior and finally, Traitor. And people wonder why he was called the Embittered. He was the only Iron Warrior that cared, that realized that they had made a pact with the Devil and the bitter fruits that they had harvested was nothing but ashes and lamentations. But no one, seems to see the things the same way as he did. The Horus Heresy has been nothing but a colossal screw up, and because of his loyalty and code of honor, he was now marginalized by his peers and detested by the Empire. All for the machinations of a bloody cohort of demons that saw the wolf ears and fucked up the Crusade and the Golden Age of Humanity.

Olympia became a Rubicon for him. Alone and with all his hate and bitterness, Steel found his path. He was going to destroy the demons. Not exactly destroy, he was going to create a way to isolate his brothers from the Warp. The Warp is not worth it, sure it was handy for space travel, but that was all. There must be a way to isolate mortal flesh from the pernicious corruption of the Warp. Being a mutant was a complete No, in his books, once the Warp got a hold in the flesh, the road for damnation was set, and only the purification of the flesh by fire, was the way to prevent it spreading.

Not to mention how demons could get a hold faster in a mutated flesh and soul, than in a clean one. Mutations are usually the signal of the Warp. Still, after living in thousands of industrial works, Steel knows that radiation and environmental circumstances could induce mutation in the population. Those are not corrupted by the Warp, alas, they could easily fall into the temptation. The Empire was not kind to them, and even If they realize that the Chaos was even worse, at last in the Chaos armies they had the possibility of growing beyond their low position into leaders and monsters that would raze the galaxy.

It was depressing, but Steel has long accepted the reality of the M31, this was a galaxy at war, specially now that the Chaos gods has managed to set a foot in the material realm and could send hordes after hordes of cretin cultist and their champions, not to mention if someone was foolish enough to summon them, demons could temporarily manifest in the material realm and wreak havoc before they vanish back.

Another big No, in Steel books. Demons are nothing but a pain in the ass, as much as they like to pose as transcended beings and the sort, in truth they are nothing but slaves of their own natures and the whims of their Chaos Gods. Trying to comprehend a Chaos god plans and actions was a futile effort, he had better things to do. As soon as he razed the surface of Olympia; looking for something that could have survived to the devastation, without any success except a couple of sunken bunkers, filled to the brim with the corpses of civilians. He only found two corpses of his battle-brothers, under a ton of rubble in a radioactive waste, their gene-seed so corrupted that it was a putrid green mass on their chest.

He purified them with promethium and performed the Iron Warrior funeral rites, it would possible be the last time anyone did them. Chaos has corrupted his Legion, and what in the past was honorable and logic, was now a twisted parody of an arms race all over Medrengard, like children bashing each other skulls to entertain a psychotic bastard that has lost his marbles long time ago. Steel was deeply disturbed by the appearance of his Legion, how they had forgotten who they are and instead fought for, what?, the approval of Perturabo?, the thirst of military knowledge and alchemy?, what is the Legion standing for now?. The demons had twisted them into parodies of what they were, supreme strategist, logistics and siege masters. Warsmiths?, they did not deserve that title, not now, that they happily exchanged excellency for corruption.

The Empire was a hostile place and the Eye of Terror was not better, but a lot of Demon worlds at last had the courtesy of doing business with them, mostly in the form of supplies and reinforcements for his battered Warship and crew. With bitterness, he saw how dozens of Astartes of different chapters asked for joining his Warship. As disillusioned as him with their Legions and just trying to bury that contempt in an eternal war. If anything, Steel was a good leader, cold, efficient and without any time to spiritual and absurd daemonic non-sense. He was an Iron Warrior, first and foremost and he had a goal. How to made himself immune to the Daemonic possession and corruption of the Warp.

In the five hundred years that passed since the defeat of Horus, Steel traveled over all the Empire, looking for knowledge over a method about how to defend himself against the invasion of the Warp in his body. As Warsmith and inhabitant of Medrengard, about one or two times each fifty years more or so, Steel developed the beginnings of a mutation, and before it could spread, he purified himself with acid, fire and surgery. Rejecting with all his might, any of those "gifts" that the rest of the planet so happily accepted. Some of them started to understand that mutations were a bloody chore and burden more than any gift that they could use or benefit from.

But there was hope as he accidentally found something that could help him to face the horrors of the Warp. The Sister of Silence. Those warriors were capable of negating the psykers and to disperse demons with their mere presence. Steel know of the existence of this fierce female warriors, all of them were of a unique condition that was called Blank, Pariahs and other names. Essentially, they were immune to the Warp, they rejected it, no demons, psyker or anything could affect them. Still, Steel soon discovered that a stone throw via telekinesis, from a hundred of meters away, was enough to quash the poor bastards.

And then Steel discovered a lot more about the Pariahs, thanks to a blessing of his Astartes biology. The Omophagea. All Astartes worth of that name, not the blasphemous jokes that Fabius Bile has created; called the Terata; had an organ that allow them to pick genetic information from genetic material they consume. As soon as Steel put his hands on the corpse of a Pariah, he devoured what was left of his brain and learned part of the truths that made the lives of the pariahs.

Pariahs are mutants, their brains blot the Warp out, it was rare as the teeth of an owl, but they exist; and if they are of mutant origin, means that Steel could replicate it and become himself a pariah, forever rejecting the Warp. A hundred years later, and with the adding to the project of a strange and unique metal, Steel was ready to finally become immune to the attentions and "gifts" from the Warp entities.

He couldn't have done it without a unique and mysterious metal that they discovered by accident in a feral world. A bunch of Terrans medieval-like civilizations, has set base around a mine of some kind, the metal they extract from the mine was not only one of most dense material in the galaxy, but has the impossible quality of repairing itself. Even after being hit by a meltagun, the metal continued to regrow the damages. As soon as Steel saw it, see the solution of all his problems and perhaps, the next evolution of the Iron Warriors, one on where they could be freed form the stupidity of Perturabo and the machinations of the demons of the Warp.

Metallic warriors, Astartes, united under the Unbreakable Litany; free of the corruption of the Warp and the whims of a rude Primarch who forgot who he was, in order to became an eternal slave. Iron Warriors like they should have been since the beginning. Olympia could be reborn again, and this time, they can make it right. Steel, started to see hope, alas, he was the only one who saw it and then, committed the mistake that ended with him tumbling around the Warp like an abandoned toy.

There was only one place in the universe where he could make his investigations in relative peace, a place where he could perfect the method to made himself the perfect mix between machine and Astartes and immune to the whims of the Warp.

Medrengard.

His bunker, his fortress, protected by technology that the rest of the universe has long forgotten or abandoned; it was the perfect place to complete his investigation. He could negotiate with the rest of the Warsmiths for resources, in exchange of unique tanks, Dreadnought models and weapons. It was a win-win situation for everybody. Tech in exchange of resources, in less than three centuries, it was clear that the Bunker/Fortress of Steel, the Embittered Spirals, was neutral ground, where all the Warsmiths could come to buy Tanks, Dreadnoughts, equipment and the such; all of it clear of Daemonic taint. Something that annoyed a little to all the Warpsmiths in Medrengard but the general sentiment in the Legion was that demons were not trustworthy, technology was.

It was pretty convenient for Steel, who keep fabricating weapons so they could kill each other; and good riddance, as Steel despised them for twisting the Iron Warriors into a mockery of what they were. As the wars continued forever over Medrengard, Steel keep investigating the three things that he thought, could be salvation of the Iron Warriors.

The mutation of the Blanks, the Living metal and the Unbreakable Litany.

Much to his chagrin, he was forced to learn about the Warp and sorcery. In order to vanquish an enemy, one has to understood them, and that was perhaps the origin of his mistake. He needed knowledge of how the flesh of the demons interacted with the material realm and how the Blanks rejected them, not to mention, to see how the living metal affected the demons flesh and the powers of the psykers. There was thousands of experiments, tests, etc. The worst of all, was how he was forced to deal with Astartes like Fabius and psykers, even constructing beautiful war machines that were corrupted by daemonic hosts.

But his Company, little more than a tool for Steel, did not share his ideas, none of the Company shared his vision for the future, only a bunch of cretins that fought for the scraps that Perturabo toss in their way or the whims of a demon that promised things that they could not grant. Unfortunately, Astartes were made to war, it is in their veins, and they will constantly look out for more battles. Even if, half of the time, they had no idea what are they fighting for or why they need to try to sate their bitterness with all the victims they had around. Steel was sick tired of that, and like Perturabo, he buried himself in his fortress, only exiting when it was necessary.

For thousands of years, Steel suffered failure after failure; it was eight steps back for each centimeter ahead. Not really a surprise, he was doing something that none other in the universe has done before, mostly because no one cared three fucks about it. The Emperor, infinite in his wisdom, tried to do something and Horus, in a burst of childish pout and rage, send it all to hell. But The Emperor; someone who Steel had nothing against, now that he know a lot of truths that Perturabo choose to close his eyes and ears before accepting; had one disadvantage that Steel does not have. He was a god in all but name, meanwhile, Steel was another anonymous scion of Perturabo, another of his puppets in this bloody and stupid joke of a home-world that was Medrengard.

Steel was a speck of dust in the universe, and in his anonymous state, laid the seeds of his triumph, as everybody else, thought that he was nothing but another embittered Warsmith, who couldn't cope with the fall of Medrengard and imitate his Primarch in his voluntary exile inside his fortress. The best part of it, was the part that they were partially right. He was embittered and sick tired of the disastrous state of the Empire. The Crusade was one thing, the blood had a sense, a purpose. Horus had nothing of that, and when they were defeated at the Imperial Palace, they had even less now.

After suffering bitter failures one after another, Steel did not falter, if anything, his bitterness work in his favor for one, as he expected to suffer failures one after another. But after three thousand years, in the M34, Steel managed to accomplish something that none has ever accomplish, possible since the Dark Ages of the Technology. He called it, the Obliteration Project. A virus, designed with a mix of the qualities of adaptation of the living metal and the unique Blank skill to reject the Warp, the living metal will empower the body, making it the perfect mix of body tissue and technology as it could absorb, link and use anything with this transformation ability; and with the constant protection of a Blank unique mutation, no demon or psyker would ever be able to corrupt any Iron Warrior.

Steel finally achieved his goal; burning all the resources he had, to create a single dose of the magnificent virus; he put the control of his Company on the hands of one of the oldest Deredeo Dreadnoughts he had in service. The old Onyxless, a veteran from the Heresy that has kept all his tactical cunning when he has buried into the Dreadnought sarcophagus. Closing any access to the main laboratory and forge, Steel started to work in the Obliterator Virus, calling it like that, because it will Obliterate all the corruption of the Legion.

Unfortunately, and Steel should have known better; as soon as he lost sight of what was going outside, the Dispute of Iron erupted like a volcano. A violent, nonsensical civil war scourged Medrangard, as Warband after Warband tried to kill the other, looting the resources and armies of the other, just to turn their heads to the next victim and starting again. Entire worlds under the control of the Iron Warriors were destroyed to the ground, as the Civil War raged violently all over the Eye of Terror, and extra hard in the polluted skies and grounds of Medrangard. Steel must admit that Onyxless did as much as he could, the Embittered Spirals was far from being the most impressive of the Fortress, it was worthy of being called home of a Company of Iron Warriors but lacked the military disposition of others. What he was not lacking, was firepower and his own factories that could supply the company of tanks and ammo for a long time.

For a couple of decades, the Embittered Spirals resist all the attacks of the enemies, specially when they started to use demons and other blasphemies of the Warp, did they realize that the Spirals could not be broken by psyker powers or daemonic intrusions. It was the first security layer that Steel implemented. But at the end; even with all the unique tech that the Spiral had and that the other Warsmiths and Warpsmiths tried to stole for him; the Spirals fall under the relentless assault of the invaders.

At the end of the Siege; when the invaders of the recently formed Steel Brethren, aided but another dozen of warbands, broke the final doors of the bunkers; Steel has already completed his labor and the Obliterator Virus run in his body, making him the perfect amalgam of flesh and steel. Something that he promptly show to any invader that entered in the halls of his forge, as he makes sure that no one will ever corrupt his job. He wanted a cure for his sick Legion, and this is how they paid him. So, be it, Steel activated the self-detonation of his bunker and walked into the battle, shooting wildly all the weapons he could manifest with a bitter laugh echoing in his speakers.

But the truth was something that made him see how truly low has fallen the Primarch, at the end of the Siege of the Spirals, one of the most faithful Warsmiths of Perturabo dig his battered and broke body from the rubble. Since the beginning, they knew of what he was doing, since the beginning, Perturabo knew about the Obliterator Virus, and knew that only a Heretek like Steel, could actually make it real. However, when Steel discovered how to made it into a weapon against demons, he has to die.

In a desperate battle, Steel broke free of the restraints and fought against the demon pets of the Warsmith, blasting his head off with an accurate shot of his weapons; still, he underestimated the power of the Tzeentch Daemon that accompanied the Warsmith and when his Blank mutated body came closer to the demon, the beast screeched and turned into the Daemon know as Fateweaver. The crazy, two headed Lord of Change, stared at Steel and for the eternal surprise of the Iron Warrior, both heads laughed their asses off.

And then, open a portal the size of a bloody castle and Steel fall directly into it, vanished into the Warp, eternally trapped in his own living metal body. His Blank powers had a limit and they were not enough to block the powers of the Vizir of Tzeentch.

So, Steel So´ur, the first true Obliterator of the Iron Warrior Legion, a unique amalgam of living metal and untouchable powers, was not a happy Astartes, as he floated lazily in the middle of the currents of the Warp. His mind shut down as soon as he entered in the Warp, in order to protect his mind and do not become crazy for the impossible visual information. Soon followed by the rest of his body, as his Sus-an membrane took control of the animated suspension of the body, making it the most expensive space hulk of the M34.

But even if his body and mind were shut down, his soul was not.

It is a common mistake, everybody believe that the connection that the humans and other races had with the Warp is their souls. Wrong. Souls exist, the reflection of the people in the Warp is their souls, their minds focus that connection. That´s why psykers are like beacons and why even a Blank can be tore apart by a demon, there is a limit of how much power can a Pariah block, there is a limit of how much Warp can a Pariah reject before being overwhelmed and vaporized as the rest.

Steel´s soul was frankly, having a very bad day, as it was being blanketed but the light of the Astronomicon, the light of the mind of the Emperor and his Chorus of Astropaths. It was a very scorching experience, as Steel could feel how his entire soul, and possible body, was being torn apart by the mind of the Emperor and reconstructed as fast as it has been destroyed. A bitter sensation emanated from his core, he hated when Perturabo acted like they were all puppets and now, the bloody emperor was doing the same. Frankly, Steel was death tired, three thousand years trying to save his bloody Legion, to show them that the daemonic corruption was nothing but a mistake, and this is how he was going to end.

Atomized by the Emperor.

He had reasons to be embittered, yes he had a lot of reasons to be embittered. Now, he understood why the Fateweaver has laughed like a madman in his face. This was bloody hilarious, if you are not the victim of course. Atomized in the Warp. Even his soul would vanish and there will be nothing left of him, bloody great.

Of course, landing, face front, against the hard surface of a tree was not among the endings that he….wait a bloody second, a tree?.

Steel was confused. He should be dead, he should be nothing but a dust speck, floating in the middle of the Warp. Instead, he was munching the bark of a tree in the middle of a quiet and cold forest, somewhere in the universe. With a loud grunt, Steel put his hands over the bark of the tree and got his face out of the plant, noticing that it was as hard as concrete. This planet´s flora was quite sturdy, if he...wait a moment.

Steel observed his body and for a long time, he just stood here, his mind screeching to a bloody halt, unable to understood what the hell was going on here.

First of all, he was wearing his Catapractii patter terminator armor, but without helmet, otherwise he would have not tasted the bitter, but nice, taste of the bark of the tree. But that was impossible, when the Fateweaver kick his ass into the Warp and the Emperor vaporized him. No, he did not vaporize him, he reconstructed him. His armor carried the dark silver and gold colored pattern of his Legion, from the layered shoulder pads to the energy backpack; all was like the Terminator armor he wore during his time as Tyrant Siege Terminator, back in the Legion. He only need the Cyclone launcher and his Servo-Harness on the shoulders or the back, and the semblance to those golden days would be complete.

As he though about that, the metal of the armor started to react and soon, a pair of twin cyclone launchers grow over the shoulders of the armor and a quad of servo-limbs appeared from his side; the pincers and the weapons of his old Servo-harness clicked once, showing that they were ready. Raising an eyebrow, Steel looked at his left hand and soon the metal expand and transform into the cannon´s of a twin Boltgun. He turned his attention to his right hand and the hand expanded into a massive fist, just over the knuckles a box contraption grow and from it, a long and serrated chainsaw erupted. The fangs of the chainsaw glowed in the moon light of the night.

Speaking of which, the moon was broken, cracked apart and with a lot of asteroids floating around the massive crater that has cracked it like an eggshell. Not really that impressive, in all Steel thought that it was a very lousy job, if you are going to detonate a moon, you do it completely, this half assed job was something that annoyed the professional sense of Steel.

Of course, he knew that he should be freaking out, that he should be dead. However, the same cold logic and pragmatical efficiency that gave infamy to his Legion was keeping him level headed in all this madness. He knew that no demon could have done something like this. Not after sensing the bloody Emperor playing scrabble with his molecules. He has reconstructed him, better than he could have ever expected, he has changed something on the Obliterator Virus, the living, eternally adapting metal was still there, but the cold sensation of his Blank mutation was not.

He wasn't a psyker either, or at last, he didn't feel like one, in fact, all the senses of his Terminator armor were speaking directly to his brain, and telling him that there was zero wrap presence in the zone. That the psychic scanners and sensors that he integrated in his armor; and lately absorbed by the virus; were all green and telling him that there was nothing of the sort in the zone, where he has landed. This was nuts, so much, he was completely sure, he was in a forsaken world; in a system with a broken moon and zero psychic presence.

The weapons disappeared back into his armor, there was no need to keep them out at the time, it would only impair movement, and they could appear at any moment with a mental order. Speaking of orders, a little experimentation was in order. He need to know what has done the Emperor to him, still, he had to admit that he felt more alive that he has felt in thousands of years. The cold breeze of the night, the sounds of the forest, the taste of the bark, the lights of the stars. Simple, natural things, that he forgot, that he never had the time or the desire to experiment as he was neck deep into the next campaign of war, always knee deep in mud and grim, trying to break the defenses of the next enemy.

His Legion were master of siege warfare. Longs periods of tense alertness and bitter chores, followed by moments of rage, madness and intense violence, once the defenses of the enemy cracked. Fortunately, he was a Warsmith, he could build a tank with a generator and three pieces of scrap. He passed all the time fabricating more and more vehicles or weapons to crush the enemies of the Empire. Until Perturabo fucked up in Olympia and everything went down hill from there on.

Steel observed his hands, his body was…different, something was not right. First of all, his autosenses and sensorium array of the armor tell him that he was perfectly fine, that he was not injured the least and that his organs were working at 100%. That would be funny, for the fact that he exchanged his bloody flesh by living metal with the bloody Obliterator Virus, he should be a mass of living metal and flesh, there should be no organs to speak of. So, why the hell, the sensorium of the armor is telling his brain that his body is perfectly fine, when he has materialized weapons from his flesh without a hitch?.

The answer should be simple, he was of flesh and blood again. Impossible, but that was the only logical reason he could think of. When the Emperor vaporized him, when he started to play billiard with his atoms, he reconstructed him. But he was not an Astartes now, neither fully Obliterator. He was something else. First of all, his flesh had no trace of the corruption of the Warp that he has been fighting from thousands of years, second, he had different organs than he remembered. Of the nineteen organs that conformed the basis of the extra enhancements of the Astartes, Steel knew that he lacked three of them. The Sus-an, the Black Caparace and the Progenoids.

The Sus-an could be explained by the mutation of the Blank, now gone, but his brain was now complete high-wired with the Obliterator Virus, so he could "Shutdown" himself like a computer system, if he needed. The Black Caparace was useless for him, as his body and the armor were one, there was no need of it. But the problem came with the Progenoid, there were not in the usual place, but in a skin sack, hanging between his legs. Wait, those were not Progenoids, those are bloody testicles, he had balls now?!, and a penis?!. Not what he expected, not at all. Anyhow, leaving apart that surprises, he was in perfect physical fit, after all, he has smashed his face against a tree and…

Second realization of the day, he has smashed his face against a tree. Fun fact, he has been wearing his armor 24/7 for a century, he has not taken his helmet off in more than a hundred years, in fact, his helmet was fused to his face as soon as the Obliterator Virus entered in his system. He should be permanently helmet-faced from that point onwards.

Guided by an impulse, Steel ordered his armor to pull back, and for his astonishment, the armor did exactly that, it retracted on itself, compacting into his back. With haste, from a full armored terminator, stood a very tall, muscular man of pale skin with a humongous metallic backpack fused in his back. Steel glanced at the backpack, it was surprisingly similar to the ammunition backpacks that Heavy Bolter Devastator squads Astartes had to carry to keep up with the ammo needs of the weapon. It was not uncomfortable, but it was like having a power backpack, ammo backpack and a bloody shell on his back, he was like a bloody metallic turtle.

Signing, Steel, saw that he was dress in a gray tunic, a piece of cloth to the knees and sturdy boots with steel toes. That surprised him a little, he didn't know that he could manifest clothes, but soon discovered the metallic and cold touch of the fabric, it was like steel made wool. Useful if anything, he looked around, looking for a river of other reflecting surface, so he could see how his face was. It has been eons since his flesh experiment the sensations he was feeling now, and liked to see if the ugly face he remembered to have, was still as ugly as he remembered.

Steel has never been a handsome fellow, quite the opposite, he had a face like a brick and steely colored eyes that were forever twisted in a frown, making it appear as he has only one very big eyebrow, his square mandible was akin to a gorilla and he was bald since the day he became an Astartes. Considering that he wore his armor practically all the time, he never cared about physical appearance, even less when her got his first implants in Mars and became a Techmarine for the Legion and later a Warsmith.

The Emperor Children were the ones that put make-up and prettied themselves like whores. The Iron Warriors were a Legion made of efficient and ruthless badasses, not pretty posers for the camera with their purple power armor and attention to all kind of arts, musics and shit like that. The only music that made Steel smile was the sound of the walls of an enemy fortress cracking and squashing their defenders under tons of rubble.

Even without the armor on, the sensorium of the armor was still engrained in his body, and his eyes were practically a lesser version of the auto-senses of the armor and a partial auspex. As he walked deeper into the forest; a pretty clean and natural forest, noted Steel judging from the readings that appeared in his field of vision; he soon discovered that there was nothing man made in the surroundings. It was quite the surprise for an Astartes like him, who has been from an industrial nightmare kind of world, to Hives that pierced the heavens, to radioactive wastes where even he had to move around in heavy transports. Frankly, walking around in a forest like this, cold, dense and with a hard floor of stone and compacted ground, was like being back at Olympia and its mountain forests.

It was nice. Something that surprised a lot Steel, who was pretty much convinced that he was never going to experiment something akin to a positive emotion. As Iron Warrior, they were of Iron, Iron Within, Iron Without; the battle shout of the Legion and the creed in the Unbreakable Litany; made little space for nothing that was not cold, ruthless logic. That soon creates sociopaths of the biggest caliber, but the joy of battle was something that the entire Legion took to the heart. Except Steel, who loved to work with machines, much better than humans or even his Astartes Battle-Brothers. Machines were easiest to understand, easier to fabricate and repair. For a long of time, he even considered the possibility of entering the Legio Cybernetica, but that assholes of Mars denied him at every step.

Steel still smiles every time that he remembered how he chomped the brain of one of the oldest and more knowledgeable Datasmiths, not only acquiring a god deal of knowledge from his organic brain, but hacking into the data crystals and cores of his cybernetic processor, he was able to learn a lot about the ins and outs of the Cybernetica. How they run for their lives into the Eye of Terror and keep dwelling into the creation of more perfect Sillica Animus; better known as Artificial Intelligence; a foolish errand in Steel eyes, but he gladly took the knowledge and used it to empower his own creations.

It was because of that reason why lots of fellow Warsmiths bought his creations of war. Much like him, they did not trust in the Warp spawned abominations or the fickle attention of a sorcerer, or a bloody psyker. Instead, Steel granted them, mechanical excellency, something very hard to find in the Eye of Terror, outside of Forge Worlds or Daemonic Forges.

Point is, Steel trusted more into his technological knowledge than in any psyker and his bloody Warp spawned miracles, those are never reliable; in a second, a psyker could transform into a bloody demon and send all battle plans to hell, because it was bored. It happened more than once to Steel, to see how a wild psyker suddenly turned into a daemon and started its own bloody war or orgy or plague or whatever the hell it wanted in that moment.

As the Chaos gods, daemons are slaves of their natures. For example, if a Bloodletter appears, then a carnage is going to take place with lots of bloods and decapitating included, if a Daemonette appears, then a carnage is going to take place, followed by an orgy of massive depravity. It was depressing and amusing how the Daemons, all of them, presented themselves as transcended entities and yet they all do exactly the bloody same, each time they were summoned. Except the Daemons of Tzeentch, those are a headache, they are as fickle and mood swinging as their mutating shapes appeared. Deal with one of those is a nightmare, they will promise a lot of things, do a lot of things in your favor, and then turn everything inside out, just because the "Plan" demanded it. Steel suspected that they do not have a sliver of understanding about what the bloody fuck do they want, and just rolled with the "Plan"excuse.

Walking in the forest was something that Steel was enjoying. It was the first time, he actually could do something as simple and enjoyable as an honest stroll through a natural environment. He was distracting his mind with possible tactical scenarios about how to turn this forest into a death trap, but that was nothing but mental masturbation for a Warsmith. They were created to be the supreme architects, logistics, earthworks and siege masters. Just with his own capabilities; the Obliterator Virus was a supreme tool, or his strange and unique version of it, that is; he could turn this forest into a massive and complex death trap that could kill entire regiments of mortals or even a Company of Astartes, if he could put his hands into some serious firepower. He was armed to the teeth, but right now, he would happily give his own left arm for a Mastodon Heavy tank, a Land raider, heck even for a bloody Rhino transport, after all, his arm will regrow and he would have a nice and comfy tank to drive around and set up as temporary mobile base, until he can found where in the bloody hell he was.

The absence of smog in the sky was enough to show him that he was not in an advanced world, almost all of them had the sky covered in chemicals, but the broken state of the moon was something that annoyed him. How did the inhabitants manage to reach the moon, cracked it like that and do not posses an advance industry?. It was quite surprising, perhaps they had psychic technology, like some civilizations that his Legion found during the Crusade, still, that would left lots of Warp residues in the atmosphere and his sensors has not picked anything.

Curious and more curious. With luck, they will have some kind of technology and he could use it to reach the stars and found the nearest Imperial outpost. With luck, and free of the taint of the chaos, he could present himself as a lost Astartes. Fabricating a false Drop Pod and twisting a little the data, he could appear as if he was in suspended animation since Istvaan and appear as a loyalist. Not that the Empire was better than Medrengard, but he could trade his Obliterator Virus for the rights to create a Space Marine Chapter and begun his dream of rebuild the Iron Warriors, without the mistakes that Perturabo made.

Walking in these gods forsaken forest was nice and all, but he was an Iron Warrior, he need civilization, military civilization if possible, a castle, a bunker, a frontier outpost, that would be perfect. Some kind of fortress in the middle of anywhere, that would be nice for some days of R&R and test his new Obliterator Virus, see what he can do and he can not. Oh, and have a look at his face, just to knew how he was under the armor. Walking in a comfortable tunic, like he did when he was nothing but an initiate was nice and filled him with nostalgia from the good old days, where the Legion was something more than the meaty puppets of a brooding asshole who don't know what the bloody hell did he wanted.

Daemonhood was the goal of all the traitor Primarchs and frankly, Steel did not see the advantages of the bloody thing. Sure, eternally bounded to the Warp, eternally neck deep in power plays, eternally gaining the favors of gods that give three fucks about everything; yes, it does sound truly appealing for him. Notice, that the sarcasm and bitterness that permeated Steel thoughts was enough to rust the metal tones of his tunic, however, it had an interesting secondary effect.

Grimm. Bane of Remnant, the black beasts of destruction, the soulless monsters that plagued the nightmares of Humankind and Faunuskind since day one. They feed on negative emotions, they are creatures that are attracted by the dark emotions that lurk in the hearts of the living. Right now, Steel was a beacon of bitterness, not exactly a dark emotion on itself, but more than enough to catch the attention of a pack of Beowolves that were following a bunch of humans in the forest, trying to ambush and devour them.

They turn around and moved to locate and destroy the living thing that was behind them and who was waving bitterness in waves. For the Beowolves, this was like the delicious smell of a barbecue in the distance, attractive and promising of a feast. With the agility of the wolves that they took name after, the pack, guided by a stronger Alpha, traversed through the dense forest without a problem, stalking the prey that they had sense.

Steel was distracted by his own planning and thoughts; this was clearly an underdevelopment world, somewhere in the universe, with natural environments, perhaps even an Agricultural World of some kind. Not precisely the best destiny he could have asked for, but considering that he should be a speck of dust in the Warp, he was not complaining.

Reacting in automatic, one Servo-arm deployed itself from the backpack on the broad back of Steel. The pincer of the powerful mechadendrite crunched, with a loud crunch and a liquid sound of bone, flesh and brains being splattered, the head of a strange creature that has tried to lunge with his jaws ready to bite, the body of Steel.

The corpse fall to the ground and Steel payed attention to it, as the Servo-arm retreated back to his back. He was convinced that it was only a backpack, but it was a big, perfectly fused, Servo-harness, with the Spirit Machine always vigilant if his master was not. Uh, that was something awfully convenient that Steel found himself smiling at the thought. But the smile soon faded as he observed the werewolf-like beheaded creature that vanished in a black smoke under his feet.

This thing has tried to ambush him, and once it has been killed, it vanished. This thing was too similar to a Daemon to be comfortable, however, all the sensors in Steel, told him that there was no Warp involved, there was no psychic trace left behind, there was no psyker powers involved and best of all, there was no Daemonic presence behind the blasted thing.

A loud growl and the echo of claws against tree barks and the hard ground, made Steel to look around, seeing several things like the one that he has killed, captained by a bigger, bulkier version of them with longer bone armor and masks with red stripes on them. It was a curious sight, what kind of biological abomination was these?, for the first time in centuries, Steel was curious, and felt the sensation quite interesting. He couldn't remember, when was the last time he felt academical and intellectual curiosity about anything.

With a though, his body became enveloped in the Cataphractii Terminator armor that he wore with pride and joy during his life as a Tyrant Siege Terminator in his Legion. Once the helmet flown over his head and face, the auto-senses filled his vision and show the status of the armor and the practically unlimited weaponry that he had at his disposal. A very wide smile formed in his mouth, this was exactly what he dreamed off when he created the Obliterator Virus.

But first comes first, this pups needs to be taught a lesson, not that they were going to survive and learn from it, but they were quite handy to check up his deployment time and the versatility and agility he had on his Cataphractii armor. Terminator armors were not famous for their agility, but for being bulwarks of impenetrable defense and tremendous fire power. The beowolves lunged at him and Steel echoed the aggressiveness with a laugh and the battle cry of his Legion.

"Iron within, Iron without!". Laughed Steel, punching one of the incoming with his left fist, the appendage has quickly changed into a power fist, once the energy field and servo enhancers hit the head of the Beowulf, it disappeared in a shower of bone splinters and blackish flesh and blood.

The rest of the pack moved to the sides, flanking the armored form, bigger than them, and standing at the same height of its Alpha, on a staggering ten feet height. They savagely clawed the sides of the armor and the backpack, but their claws just scratched the silver surface without even leaving a shadow of a scratch in the mate surface. The mechadendrites of the Servo-harness come to life and pay back to the surrounding Beowolves, the pincers had enough strength to bent titanium and punch through the armored plaques of a battle tank; the Beowolves that were unfortunate enough to be at reach, saw how the pincers smashed the part of their bodies that they found.

On the right hand of Steel, the twin cannons of a Storm Bolter erupted from the armored wrist, the barrel of ammo started to charge the gun and without a second thought, Steel pointed out the weapon to the pack, unleashing the thundering bullets of the weapon against these abominations of black flesh.

Among the pack, only three of them were fast or agile enough to react to the menace and move outside of the arc of the weapon, barely dodging the bullets. The rest; a quintet of Beowolves that were regrouping to made another pass at Steel, looking for some weakness in the silver mate and gold armor; found themselves in the wrong side of a Storm Bolter. The shells of the gun found their objectives and the Beowolves exploded in pieces. Once the piercing tip of the self propelling projectile entered in their bodies, piercing the inhumanely resistant flesh like it was a folio of paper, the explosive charge of the bullet ignited, exploding like mini missiles in the insides of the Beowolves, that exploded in echo, as their bodies were ripped apart from the inside by the explosion. Limbs, heads and other organs from the insides of the Beowolves were sent flying all directions, however, they soon vanished in a blackish mist.

"Hum". Said Steel looking at the surviving trio of Beowolves with the Storm Bolter pointing at them and his left fist humming in energy. "Biodegradable abominations, this is something new, they are clean at last". Snorted Steel, giving a step ahead and facing the bigger of the werewolf like things and the other two survivors.

However, and much to his amazement, the Alpha turn around and start running into the forest, soon followed by the other lesser werewolves. For the Alpha, it was clear that this human or whatever the hell it was. It smelled like metal and flesh and something else, a mix between the machines that the humans used but without the delicious smell that carried the ones that usually fought them. The Alpha was convinced that it was an easy prey, it lacked the smell and light that his favorite prey had. Instead, they had found something that it was immune to their claws and who could shoot and kill them with a thundering cannon.

"You have to be kidding me!". Grunted offended Steel. "Come here, you overgrow carpets!". Shouted Steel to the retreating forms of the Beowolves. Seeing that they were quickly vanishing into the dense forest, Steel, concentrated in changing the Storm Bolter of his hand, for something more appropriate for the occasion.

The long cannon of a Laser cannon appeared in his hand, soon fusioned with his shoulder pad and emitting a subtle hum, as the cells of energy of the weapon charged and Steel took aim; his auto-senses were easily capable of piercing the darkness of the forest and tracking the retreating and agile form of the bigger of the werewolves. With a grunt, he shot the Laser cannon and observe with violent glee how the Laser reached the retreating form and vaporized it in a red light; the black skin and flesh of the Alpha glow red for a second, before spontaneously vaporized in ashes that were carried by the night´s chilly winds.

The weapons and armor of Steel retracted back to the Servo-harness in his back, leaving him again with his silver tunic and boots, and a very satisfied expression on his face. Now, this is what he was talking about, this Obliterator virus was no doubt, his magnus oppus, however, whatever did the Emperor has only empowered it. Thanks for it, Emperor, really, thanks for it, it was good to know that the job of an entire; Astartes long; life has not gone to waste, that he was bloody right, that the Iron Warriors and the rest of the Astartes could be immune to the Warp and tell the daemons to go fuck themselves.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the slightest idea about where the hell he was, and in consequence, he could not share his discoveries with the rest of the Imperium as he would have loved to do. Creating new Legions, Legions of Astartes immune to the Warp and restarting the Crusade, this time for good.

Steel, waited for a couple of minutes, weapon displayed on his left, just in case one of those whelps thought about vengeance. But as he walked deeper into the forest, nothing happened, the werewolves like things, run into the densest parts of the forest, and Steel wasn't in the mood to chase them. However, it was interesting species; first one, apart daemons, that evaporated themselves once they are killed. Considering how he has gone a little overkill with them, he was not sure of the limits of how much damage one has to inflict on them to made them vanish in a black mist. Cleaning crews must be delighted, the cleanest assassins ever.

Reabsorbing the weapon, Steel observed the moon and started to walk in the direction that the werewolves came from. If they were over there, that would mean that there are preys or other interesting things. Not sure of the intelligence of the things; they were clever and cunning enough to attack in packs, but retreating when they had chewed more than they can swallow. However, they had not recognized the danger of attacking an armored individual or the danger of the Bolter as soon as he manifested it. Either the armored people of this world was no menace to them or they have never seen a firearm. Of course, this was nothing but entertaining thoughts to pass the time, as he walked out of the bloody forest.

For the eternal surprise of Steel, as he strolled in the forest, his enhanced senses, did pick the sounds of an encampment ahead of him, quickly creating a mechadendrite ending in an auspex and manifesting a small Signum over his right eye to increase the accuracy of his eyesight, Steel scanned what was ahead of him. He blinked with his flesh eye at the results.

First of all, it looks like a military encampment of some sorts, he could see the walls and the towers of defense that surrounded the place; although the machine guns in the towers were the crudest models of Heavy Stubbers that he has seen in his life. They seriously need a maintenance. The walls were a mix of stone and wood, strong and sturdy, taking advantage of the natural resources at hand, however, anything over a Stubber would pierce those walls like they were not there.

There was several sounds of people in the encampment, thanks to his enhanced senses, he could pick the smells of gun-power; an absolute relief, they are not as primitive as he feared they were, and all kind of smells like oil, food being cooked, blood and the aseptic scents of bleach and all kind of hospital sterilizers. At first impression, he must be in some sort of military hospital, that means there was a war in process and before he could smile wider, the auspex icons glowed in his vision and pointed out to an empty space in a tree. The Signum changed visions, and as soon as he did it, it was clear that there was a sniper in the tree, hiding under some kind of stealth tech or suit and pointing at him with a weapon.

Smiling, a not very tranquilizing smile, the visor of his eye has already him or her; under heat vision it was difficult to made heads or tails about what kind of genre the sniper was; pinpointed and he could deploy a plasma armed mechadendrite from his Servo-harness and vaporize it, if it was needed. But this was the opportunity to establish contact with the inhabitants of this planet and see if they knew the nearest way into an Imperial Outpost or the Spaceport. With luck, There will be a Rogue Trader, ready to take a tech expert like him in his crew, in exchange of passage and the latest news about what's going on in the Galaxy, outside of the bloody Dispute of Iron in Medrengard.

On the other side of the equation, a very distressed sniper was debating with herself about what to do. Vérde Hayha was possibly, the best sniper of the company of Alexander Arc. She was a Chamaleon Faunus and proud of it, and between her chameleon Semblance and improved eyesight, she could hit a Nevermore in the balls, a kilometer away and none would even see her shoot.

Yet, this monster has seen her, she was sure of it, all her instincts tell her that his Rifle was not enough, that even her empowered dust bullets; a symbol of trust from Alexander, that has given her the few bullets of that kind, that the base had; couldn't kill the bastard. He was strange. First of all, he was tall as a building, easily eight feet and half tall, with a face like a brick, bald and steely eyes that were the same mate color of his tunic and metallic backpack of sorts. She freaked out when a mechanical tentacle appeared from the sides of the massive backpack and some kind of monocle covered his right eye. She has never seen anything like that, such a technology or whatever it was, was more akin to a sci-fi tale than the real life.

Then, he smirked, and Vérde shuddered at the image, and started to walk to the camp. There lied her conundrum. He was human, more or less, and he was not wearing any sort of insignia or identification, not to mention that with his humongous backpack; he was the worst infiltrator ever. So, she could put a bullet in his head and pray it will be enough, or radio call Alexander to tell him that the weirdest thing ever, is coming their way. Vérde swore under her breath and pick up her battered radio, a hand down model that has passed through the tired hands of half the company. Between the constant Grimm attacks at the Field Hospital and the constant searching of the Repressionists Kill Teams, this was not a good week.

"Alexander". Called Vérde to the radio, pushing the communication button. "There is something, really, really weird walking to the Hospital now, I suggest you get out and speak to him to see what the heck is he doing around here. Vérde Over". The sniper sent the message, and smiled at the gruff protest on the other side of the line.

"What the heck, Vérde?, I am on my way, Alexander Out".

Steel meanwhile, indifferent to all the debacle he was generating, keep walking to Hospital Field, judging for the size of the Hospital field, there must be a door somewhere, he will walk around until he found it, and made sure to the sentinels that he was not here to initiate anything. Seeing the Stubbers, truth to be told, he was sure that he could slaughter the entire place and be done with it. But he was not in the mood for it. Curious, in the past, he would have slaughtered the entire Hospital as soon as he has put his auto-sense on it. But now?, now he just wanted some conversation and perhaps even a drink. He was in the mood for some peaceful conversation and some grub and booze.

That was just a taste of how he has changed from the embittered Iron Warrior Warsmith that he was, it was clear that the Emperor has done something else apart from altering his Obliterator Virus into something that surpassed all his expectations and desires.

Before he could reach the camp, he was surprised by a warrior that jumped from the higher point of the walls to the floor; several meters below; and landed without a problem; something impossible for a normal human; cleaning himself of dust and walking to him, like he was strolling down the park to meet a friend. This human male, was a healthy specimen, tall, about six feet and some inches, long, golden blond hair and blue eyes, short blonde beard and powerful physical complexion; for a human; he carried a long sword at his hip and was dressed with a white armor in the chest, shin guards and gauntlets. Black clothes under the armor and a symbol of two golden arcs proudly displayed in the chest guard.

"Sorry mate, but I must ask who are you and what are you doing in the middle of these gods forsaken place?". Blunt and to the point, Steel liked this blonde human already. With his enhanced earring he could listen to the Sniper in a nearby tree mutter something not flattering about the man, Alexander, seems to be his name.

"To be completely honest with you, I am asking myself the same bloody question". Sighed Steel. "I am Steel So´ur, Technomagus of the Legio Cybernetica of Mars. I had an accident with a Teleportation Homer and ended here, wherever here could be". Lied blatantly Steel, who was not wearing any red colors of the Mechanicus, not even showing its sacred symbol or even a bloody implant, but he was betting that this primitive world would just know the basis about the Adeptus.

"Sorry, the Legio what now?, what is that?, Teleportation?, is that your Semblance?". Blinked Alexander who hasn't understood half the words that the man has said. Vérde in a nearby tree was as lost as him, but the camouflaged girl could hide it better.

Steel blinked in response and a chilling sensation run though his spine, after reaching a conclusion that he honestly, expected to be wrong, but all his instincts tell him that he was not.

"Legio Cybernetica, a branch of the Adeptus Mechanicus from Mars, rings any bells?". Asked Steel, fearing the worst at the confusion of the man.

"None at all, mate". Smiled Alexander and Steel and Vérde groaned at the cheerfulness of the man. "You are in the north of the Kingdom of Vale, in the continent of Sanus".

"Bloody Warp". Cursed Steel in loud voice. "Okay, I have no idea of what are you talking about, but it doesn't matter, where can I find the nearest Spaceport, please?".

"Errr, mate, Spaceport?, what are you talking about". Asked confused Alexander, who didn't knew anything about a Spaceport, the closest thing will the nearest port of Lumilia and it was at half a day in car, taking into consideration you are not hunted by any Grimm packs.

Steel froze in the place, seeing that his worst suspicions has probed to be correct, this planet didn't have any kind of space transportation. Worse, this place didn't know anything of the Adeptus Mechanicus, meaning, they were free of Imperial Authorities, meaning this was an unknown world, free of the horrors of the Heresy. Bloody hell.

"Does the name Imperium of man, Adeptus Astartes, Astra Militia or Adeptus ministorum rings any bells for you?". Asked very politely and very coldly Steel, making Alexander gulp and listen very carefully. Alexander was a warrior of great reknown, but there was something in this giant of metallic backpack that scared the shit out of him. There was something odd about him, something that was not right, like he looks like a human, but he was not.

"Nope, not a thing". Answered Alexander in all honestly, and Steel sighed before swearing a storm in his Olympian native has been a thousand years without using it, and now he was using all the insults he remembered, all of them directed at the Emperor, the universe, the Warp and the bloody assholes that inhabited the Warp.

"You okay, mate?". Asked Alexander, who saw the depression painted in the face of the man, and really feared that he could be attracting Grimm now, the man really look downcast.

Ask and you will receive, as soon as Alexander thought of the Grimm, Vérde emitted a scream of alert at the presence of a big Ursa in the limits of the clear that separated the Hospital field from the forest that surrounded and hide the entire place from any helicopters and patrols of the Repressionists. The big, bear like, Grimm, walked on all fours, emitting a low series of grunts and roars, preparing to charge and eviscerate the humans with his claws.

"Shit, an Ursa". Cursed Alexander, unsheathing his sword. _Crocea Mors_ was a solid and sharp blade that has never failed him, pity he has left his shield inside the camp, it would have being a very nice thing to have it in his arm, right now.

"A bloody bear this time, this bloody planet is nuts". Grumbled Steel, who extended his left arm in the direction of the Ursa and manifested a plasma gun from the forearm, the weapon grow from his flesh and tunic; the batteries of the weapon glowed blue sequentially, before a blue ball of plasma fire travel the distance that separated them in a second.

The Ursa was about to raise into a bipedal form to roar in defiance when the blue ball hit his chest. A blue flash, a hissing sound, a thunder of air occupying the suddenly empty space, and all that was left of the Ursa were a pair of trembling back legs, that dispersed in black mist a couple of second after.

A deep, shocked silence imposed in the little space that the trio were occupying. Alexander and Vérde jaws were hanging open; meeting their new best friends, the floor; eyes bulging in disbelief about what they saw. That was impossible, there was no weapon that could do something like that, vaporizing a freaking Ursa in one shot. Maybe the battle cannon of a tank or a ship could achieve something similar, not a glowing tube that has grown from the clothes and arm of the giant and that has shot a blue ball of total destruction.

"Bloody Hell, what the fuck was that mate?!". Laughed and shouted Alexander Arc totally freaked out.

Steel huffed, satisfied by the absolute obliteration of his objective and reabsorbed the plasma gun back into his body, he needed to kill something in a brutal and devastating way, and plasma guns were exactly the definition of that. Considering the distance, he could have used a melta gun, but he didn't want to set the forest ablaze, and the residual heat of the melta weapons could have done that. Plasma weapons are more, precise, in that sense, but lacked the penetration that a good melta weapon had, although, it was compensated with their higher reach and higher fire ratio. There was the risk of overheating, but with enough ventilation vents and a cooling chamber, all that risks were reduced to none.

"I needed to vent some frustrations, and that thing was just in the right place, at the worst moment". Huffed in black humor, Steel. "Now, take me with your leader".

"We, may have a problem mate". Smiled sheepishly Alexander. "You see, were in the middle of a Civil war all over Remnant about that little matter".

"You got to be kidding me". Shook his head Steel. Now the planet was in the middle of a war.

" _You bloody manipulator"_. Protested Steel mentally, turning his thoughts, to the Emperor that has abandon him in the middle of all this mess. " _You really have a bloody sense of humor, who would have thought"._

 _Magenta Field Hospital/ Vale._

Turns out, it was a civil war engulfing all the planet, between the Individualism Faction and the Repressionist Faction. And the Grimm predating both factions, indifferent of wherever their next victim may come from. In Steel´s opinion, they were the only ones with common sense in all this debacle. Grimm kills anything human or faunus, and those mentioned human or faunus are busy beating each other to the death, so Grimm could go to the all you can eat buffet of cretins meat. This was idiotic to a level that Steel has not seen since the Legion had to desperately made a flight into a bloody black hole. Pity that they ended in the middle of the worst mechanized conflict of the galaxy, but Perturabo knew better, and at the end, he just fucked it up, again.

Alexander Arc and Vérde Hayha, were part of the Individualism Faction, firmly thought that suppressing all the emotions, turning all people in the world, into fleshy cogs of a massive machinery was the worst thing that one can do. Steel snorted in amusement and for the eternal horror of the two, explained the basis behind a Hive City. And they thought, they had it bad with the Repressionist, Hives were their wet dreams made possible and the worst nightmare of people like Alexander, that highly valued the life of all people. For the blonde man, Human and Faunus are the same; just people. That was one of the reasons why, a lot of Faunus, followed him around. He didn't treat them like second rate citizens the rest of the countries treated them like.

Steel, discretely run a scan with an auspex and the signum at one of the Goat faunus worker in the Field Hospital. The results were conclusive, they were mutants, but the level of mutation was negligible. An Ogrete or a Ratling has higher mutation levels and they were happily accepted in the Imperial fold. And, Steel had millions of Mutants under his command practically every day since they put a foot in Perturabo, so this all Faunus squabble was something irrelevant and foolish, in his opinion.

When Vérde, one of the few that has the guts to spoke to him, asked him what does he though about the Faunus, Steel laughed and started a very long and scientific diatribe about how and why, trying to separate Faunus and Humanity in two different folds was stupid and useless. Vérde had a migraine at the end of all the speech, but something was clear, Steel saw no difference between her, and any other person in the camp. After the scientific ranting, she needed a painkiller to subdue the migraine that the man was practically shoved in her head. He spoke terms and things, that she has never ear about. Nucleic acids?, biopolywhatever that contained polysaccharides?, sugar-phosphate something?, Vérde was not a stupid girl, far from it, but she was not a biologist or a chemist or doctor and half of the explanation of Steel, was lost to her.

At the end of the event, Alexander was smiling widely and Vérde has to made an effort of do not waste, various Dust Ammo in shooting the cocky man. He already had a conversation like that with Steel, and as soon as the man started to grumble and snort about how primitive they are, Alexander tuned out the ranting and waited for the man to let go of his bitterness. In a sense, having him around was a curse and a blessing. Grimm were attracted by the pain, hate and bitterness that the Field Hospital had, however, Steel alone could vaporize Ursas by the dozens and nail an Alpha Beowolf to the ground with an oversized fist of silver metal.

He did it those things in front of the entire Hospital. He walked outside, something akin to the bastard child of a machine gun and a battle cannon surged from his left arm and started to shower the Grimm with bullets strong enough to rip them apart like straw dummies. Then, his right fist, grow to grotesque proportions and was surrounded by a slight electric field; once he got closer to the Alpha, he punched him in the head and literally nailed him to ground. The impact o the head of the Alpha, compacted his body, making his torso and limbs explode in a blackish shower of stinky innards and slamming his cracked mask against the ground, burying in the hard surface, what's left of his legs, torso and muzzle. Grunting, Steel walked back to the Field Hospital like the Grimm attack has been nothing but an annoyance.

All on that, in the two days that the man has been around, doing nothing but stood near the forge and the vehicle park; with only one battered van, it was not much of a park; pacing from time to time near the hospital and the supply warehouse. Only Alexander and Vérde had the guts to spoke to the bitter giant. It was hard to spoke with him, as he always snarled and snorted back to whoever ask him anything, gladly illustrating his point with all kind of scientific babble that no one in the camp understood half of it, but surely, lefts them as little more than monkeys with wenches.

Truth to be told, it was mostly Steel´s fault, he was lost, and for the first time in all his long and miserable life, he had no idea of what to do. This was not an Imperial planet, in fact, he was convinced that somehow, he has been...tossed outside of the Galaxy as he knew it. Outside of the grim universe that created the eternal wars that he was so familiar with. This practically virgin planet, knew nothing of the horrors that stalked the stars, and judging from the stellar charts that he had in his systems memory, there was absolutely No correlation between any of the Astronavigation charts that he possessed and the stars in the sky.

In resume, he was lost and unless he could build himself a shuttle, he was trapped in this world. However, being trapped in this world, was slowly becoming quite the attractive prospect. He was free of all the duties that he had, the Iron Warriors has betrayed him, the Daemons has tried to kill him and the Emperor itself has kicked him out of the Universe, into this virgin world, that knew nothing of true war and the sacraments of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Meaning, he was no longer a Heretek, in fact, he was the one that has all the technology and knowledge in this primitive world.

Remnant was still in diapers about true technological advances. They have internal combustion motors; propelled by something called Dust, a high conductive, psychic reactive material that they mine from the ground and that was naturally formed in this planet. Steel picked up some Dust samples from the supplies of the Hospital, and after running some test, he was impressed by the adaptivity and quality of the strange material. It was reactive to practically everything, different energies and the Dust would adapt to create and channel those energies; create a chemical reacting and the Dust would enhance the reaction. He internally mixed bolter bullets propellant with Fire Dust and the next time he shot a Grimm smiled like a child with new toys. Dust and his Obliterator Virus were a match made in heaven. Not to mention, that having a good amount of all kind of Dust inside him, reduced the bio-energy costs that creating and supplying ammo for his manifested weapons, had on his body.

The rusted and battered truck, that the Hospital has as the only vehicle available, told Steel all he need to know about the mechanical advances of the world. He has visited worlds like that, they were advanced up to a point, but they lacked any remotely similar to the level of tech that a Hive world or a Factory world had. Surprisingly, they were quite advanced in other fields, as they had, Mecha-shift weapons that turns their close combat weapons into long ranged weapons. Alexander had a sword and shield that turned into a scabbard and Vérde had a Sniper rifle/Spear that could use high caliber Dust rounds as ammunition. rounds were the highest they had, outside of Stubbers like the ones in the tower and mounted artillery.

But the real surprise for Steel, was Aura and Semblances. At the beginning, when he saw a man levitating water from the basin at his side to the wounded man on a stretcher, he thought that psykers were unusually well treated in this world. But his sensorium, soon told him that there was NO psychic interaction there, that the source of energy was another entirely. Freaked out, Steel asked Alexander about the matter, Alexander look at him like he was crazy and explained the concept of Aura and the Semblances.

Steel ranted for hours after that conversation, why, why the hell did not humanity had something like this?, to the fuck with the Warp, to the fuck with the Psykers, this was better, cleaner and purer. No influence from the Warp, no Daemonic possession, nothing. Supposedly, it was the power of their souls made material, that empowered them and with time, awaken something called Semblance, a unique skill or power that fit the user character and mentality.

On the bright side of things; thick sarcasm in this statement; even if their entire civilization depends on Dust and Aura, only the latter was researched deeply, with little success. Not that Steel blamed them, even with his advanced Sensorium systems, Dust and Aura was something that escapes all rational classification. Auspex finally managed to pick up Aura on its readings, calibrating it, very close to the longitude of wave of the psychic powers but way far from any Warp related manifestations or Daemon intrusions. So, the claiming that they were using their souls may not been as preposterous as he thought. Dust on the other hand was the perfect catalyst. No matter what do you mix Dust with, it would react, sometimes in a very unexpected manner, as the reactions must be classified to the decimal level. Fire dust and Electric dust in a proportion of thirty to seventy created a powerful magnet, but then the proportion of thirty-one to sixty-nine instead created an explosive reaction.

Dust was funny as that.

From the distance and with his Signum recording all the event with all the sensorium of the armor in alert and scanning everything in all know frequencies and longitudes, Steel saw how a Mistralian soldier, awoke the aura of a wounded companion to made him had a chance to survive a very nasty wound from a mine. For his eternal surprise, they used words and the sharing of energy, purest than anything he has ever recorded, that awoke something inside of the wounded man and made him starting to recover from his wounds.

Aura was quite the handy tool. It empowered the body to superhuman levels; Steel would say that an experienced Aura user would be in par with an Initiate; and protected the body from harm, like everybody had his own Power Field. The natural healing of the body was enhanced too, to a point that it could emulate the increased healing of the standard Astartes but without the extra organs and benefits. Aura could break however, everybody had different quantities of Aura at their disposal, it depended a lot of individuals more than any kind of classification chart. Semblance was the cherry on top. People awoken unique skills, fitting to their personalities and kirks, although, he has eared about how some families shared a Semblance and all members of the family tend to awoke similar Semblances.

In all, it has been quite the discovery. Something like this would have come quite handy at the first days of the Crusade, an Aura empowered Astartes should be something to behold, pity, his Battle-brothers would have perverted and twisted the gift into something appeasing to that leeches of the Warp, but considering where he was now, free of all that burden, Steel feel happy to have something to investigate. Something that has caught his attention and that has shown that the Universe could still surprise him. It was a welcome change of pace. Fist time in forever that he did not feel embittered, but surprised and interested, like curious child who has found something truly marvelous.

He has found something interesting and now that he thought about it, why the hell create a Chapter of Battle-bothers in the Empire, when he could do it perfectly well here, and free of the whispers of the Daemons?. Well, not exactly Battle-brothers themselves, there was no gene-seed and he had no idea how did the Emperor managed to create the Primarch or the Adeptus Astartes in the first place. After his collaborations with that crazy bastard of Fabius Vile in the creation and investigation of the Obliterator Virus, he knew a lot about how to create facsimiles of Astartes and how to modify bodies and cybernetic enhancers to an astonishing degree, but the idea of a full-fledged Astartes, much less a Primarch was something that was beyond his skills.

But before all of that, Steel had to decide what the hell he wanted to do in this world. He could join any of the factions and turn them into an adequate, worthy of being called that, military force. But then, he would become someone that would be followed around to lead more battles, they will try to made him a hero. An idea that horrified him to the core. He was no bloody hero, he was a Warsmith and proud of it, even if he has lead entire companies in the past, his brutal, ruthless and cold methods was something that would only work in the Repressionist Faction. They were like Perturabo, and Steel hated Perturabo and the bullshit that he twisted his Legion into, at the end of the Horus Heresy.

Other could bask in the "glory" of the battle and the fame and all that shit that the Remembrancers liked to talk about, he was an Iron Warrior, he had little time for that wastes of time. That being said, it was clear that charisma was Not the best point of him, and he needed a leader that could raise the banner for all the people of Remnant. It was time to fund Olympia again, this time for good.

"Ey, Steel, we had an incoming Beowolves pack in the west of the camp, you game, mate?". Echoed the voice of Alexander Arc near Steel, and the giant Astartes smiled widely, making the poor sod, flinch, with a shiver up his spine. There was something he didn't like at all in the steely eyes of the giant, he didn't like it at all.

"Yes, I am game, Alexander". The armor of Steel deployed over his body, growing like a second metallic skin. It was always bloody awesome, gross, but awesome at the same time. "I have been lost in my own thoughts for a while, hunting and killing something will be an excellent cathartic exercise".

"You are always welcome in the hunting parties". Laughed Alexander, who would never accustom to the living armor of the giant, but his fire power was something that he could really uses to keep Grimms as far as he could from the wounded.

Steel walked alongside the little hunting party, Vérde was always scouting ahead, confident in her camouflage Semblance to keep the Grimms out of her track and senses, it has not failed her so far. It was curious, how this black skinned monsters did not attack animals, unless they were fighting for territory or food, but otherwise they ignore each other, but when they saw humans or faunus, they attack with savagery. Steel knew a couple of Khorne knuckle-heads that would have loved to recruit these Grimm into their Warbands. They were pretty much like a watered down version of Khorne Berserkers, all power and savagery, with predatory cunning, but little brain to compensate.

In the occasions were Alexander or Vérde spoke to him, they already told him of the Alpha variants, and how older Grimm are not only stronger, but generally way more clever than the common Grimm specimens. As a Grimm grow old, something rare considering the violent lives they had, they start to grow in mass, their mask grow into spikes and bigger red markings. But the real dangerous thing is that they grow intelligent, instead of the usual pack tactics and savagery, they could wait, analyze and recognize weak points in a fortress, settlement or anything they had their eyes on. That is dangerous as hell, a Grimm, even the most common and weakest species, the Beowolves, are more than capable of slaying civilians by the dozens, it was needed a lot of firepower to take down a Grimm.

Steel smiled at the weapons of the hunting party. Those were solid, well maintained weapons, so much he could see, but they were sorely inefficient to deal with the sturdy skin and bone like armor of the Grimm. Until they used Aura and Dust to empower the bullets and the blades and made them sturdier, sharper, deadlier. Aura was as cheating as the psychic powers were back in Steel´s own dimension. However, he could see how the civilization has grown dependent of a weapon that could push the Grimm back and save their lives from those blackish, bestial, insulting, breed of nuisances.

They didn't need to move much to hunt down the pack, they were running at the Hospital, Steel has been informed that they hunt negativity, that they found the darkest emotions of humanity a sweet, alluring smell or taster or whatever, that they can found and use as a beacon to hunt down their favorite prey. It was a very interesting way of hunting, very useful and pragmatic, Humans and Faunus, all were living beings, so they will feel emotions, they can not be otherwise. Point is, even if you try to live in the most positive environment ever; at the end you will experiment negative emotions, it was part of life. Except if you are and Astartes, then you are pretty much the worst thing a Grimm can find, Astartes, after all, Shall Know No Fear.

Rage was still in the table, and as Steel has tested, his bitterness was attractive for the Grimm as well. That opened a lot of interesting possibilities, lets say, that someone picked up an asshole, then he ties him in the middle of a Grimm infested zone and then he is tortured or make him suffer a lot. Grimm will come in spades, once they had reached a high enough number, then a high explosive, phosphoric, demolition bomb can be detonate. Quick way to cull Grimm population, it was a surprise that no one has though of it before, most probably because attracting Grimm was an idiotic thing to do, they could spread way out of the calculated zone and attack colonies and settlements that were unprepared for the sudden rush. But it was a good idea to have, just in case an horde get to close to comfort and could be diverted to a trap, culling them before they grow too much for the common defenders of the colonies.

Speaking of which, most of the settlements were poorly defended, towers of defense were nice, but depend too much of a constant rotation of personnel, automatic turrets on the other hand, could operate for 24/7, only with minimal maintenance and ammo supplies, if they were of the solid ammo kind of turrets. A Multilaser was a very cheap, efficient and quick way to defend a position of infantry attacks. Perhaps with a missile launcher as extra measure, taking precautions against high armored objectives like those Goliath elephant like Grimm that Alexander has mentioned.

The hunters quickly engaged the pack, with Vérde providing support as Sniper shots, the rest could engage quickly with the Beowolves in close combat. Feeling in the mood for some bloody sports, Steel extended four blades from his knuckles, and soon those blades hummed with blue energy, allowing him to slice and dice through the Grimm flesh and bones like there were butter in from of a hot knife. It has been eons since he used Lighting Claws weaponry, those were rare and required special training to use them correctly. As part of his training as Astartes, he passed time in an Assault squad and was trained in the use of them, however, it was clear that he was not adequate for the weapon or the position, the training in all kind of close combat weapons was welcome.

"Each battle, you had new weapons, mate, your Semblance is terrific". Laughed in good humor, Alexander, dispatching a couple of wolfish Grimms.

Everybody and their grandmothers were convinced that his Obliterator Virus was a Semblance, the unique gift that Aura gave to their users, sometimes at the moment, sometimes years later. For their point of view, his weaponry, eons ahead of anything they had, was the result of a Semblance. It was like a Psyker in that sense, Semblance could even alter the reality in some cases. There was someone among the Repressionist that can literally kill with a word.

Steel pointed his Reaper cannon and harvest the Beowolves like they were nothing, against the weapon´s firepower capabilities; capable of shooting eight inches long projectiles, of two hundred grams weight, at three hundred foot per second of speed; they could easily be made of cardboard. Steel always favored the Reaper Cannon when he was in the Tyrant Siege Terminator Squad of the Iron Warriors. It was effective against medium armored vehicles and any kind of infantry, for hordes of cannon fodder to more heavy lieutenants or leaders, combined with his Cyclone Launcher, he was capable of facing armored troops and numerous formations of infantry with the same efficiency. And he was eager to enjoy a little violence, after all the internal debate he was having with himself, reaping enemies again with his good and trustworthy Reaper cannon was exactly what he need to clear his head a little.

And if some other Beowolf came too close, he just smashed his muzzle with his Power fist, basic close combat weapon of any Terminator, and oversized fist with a disruptive energy field that combine the immense strength of the servos of the armor with an energy field that disrupted solid matter. It was slow, but the punch; pun totally intended; was more than enough to compensate the treacherously slow weapon. More than once has an enemy become overconfident in their speed to stay away of the fist, just to found themselves in the way of a fist that obliterated them into gory chunks. Specially Eldars, he never saw the faces under the masks and helmets, but Steel was sure that they had died with a surprised expression in their faces. Good times those.

"One thing I have been asking myself". Said Steel providing fire cover to Alexander and his two companions. "Who gives the order in your Faction Alexander?, so far I have been earring the radio operator grumble and protest but no order has been relayed and you and your squad are wasting their time here".

"Well, is a little complicated mate". Chuckled the blonde knight. "My squad and I were supposed to build the Hospital field and provide protection from them, before the local garrison could relay our next instructions and replace us in defending the Hospital, but with the radio practically busted, we are waiting for the reinforcements".

Steel raised an eyebrow under his helmet.

"Have you ever considered the possibility that there are no reinforcements, because they had no bloody idea where the Hospital is and they didn't want to risk any troops against the Grimm?". Commented Steel, smashing another Grimm and shooting in a wide arc, sending them in a bloody heap against the trees of the forest surrounding them.

"Yes, I have considered it, but unless we repaired the bloody radio". Snorted Alexander with a bit of dark humor. "Something very difficult considering where are we and what little technical supplies we had, defending the Hospital is the only thing I can do, until circumstances changed or I could find a nice Repressionist squad to loot their equipment, whatever happens first".

Steel smiled under the helmet, Alexander was a man after his own heart, do what you can, with what you have and when the opportunity appears, strike without mercy. However, there was something odd in what he has said to him.

"Repairing the radio?, Alexander, you have seen me materializing tech that leaves that radio as a toddler toy". Stated Steel with amusement.

"Yes, I have, but this is not your war". Simply responded Alexander and that throw Steel for a loop. Alexander was not trying to recruit him into the Individualism Faction, that was not what Steel was expecting, but ironically, it was precisely the kind of thing that he should have expected of the man.

Each and everyone of his squad of misfits and ragged defenders of the Individualism, where there because Alexander gave them the option to be there or run to a safer place like defending cities from the Grimm and other secondary tasks. Alexander never, ever, forced them to fight in this war, he gave them options and all chose to follow the blonde Arc before running.

Steel never understood that system of leadership, all he knew in the Iron Warriors was loyalty through fear, strength and the eternal duty that the scions of Perturabo had for his Primarch. They can not disobey him, it was something so engraved in their very souls, that the concept of failing in the act of duty was anathema for all of them. Perhaps that´s why Horus turned them against the Empire so easily, they were so deep in their duty and bitterness above all, that the first time that someone actually, congratulated them for a bloody job well done, they follow him like abandoned puppies.

Steel was at a loss of words, Alexander was giving him a chance, an opportunity to say all of this fuck it, and retire to a settlement, somewhere outside of the main zones of battle, where he could defend the settlement better than anyone. But Steel had a problem. He was an Astartes, they were made of war, deprive them of that and they will be without purpose, for thousands of years, Steel´s purpose has been the Obliterator Virus. Now, that he was not only achieved it but somehow, being accepted and tossed by the Emperor itself in this strange world, Steel has no purpose, and that was something that terrified the Astartes more than anything else.

He needed a war, or something to do, give him something to construct, something to create and investigate; better weapons?, absolutely, he was on it; we need a bigger, nastier fortress that can hold hordes of Grimm every day?, he had the perfect design. However, Alexander has keep him out of the loop, in part because Steel was odd as hell for the rest and in part because the giant tech-wizard or something, has nothing to do with the battle. He didn't care three fucks about Human or Faunus, they are all the same for him, and the Individualism and Repressionist Factions made him laugh for the stupidity of the conflict.

In Olympia, both would have been hanged by the innards, just at the mention of such philosophies; the Empire Credo was high in that moment, and always was made for the good of the Empire and the Great Crusade. Iron Warriors, Iron fists and absolute loyalty to the cause, that created cunning and ruthless Warsmiths with little to none problems, to vaporized a planet to asteroids to get the job done, sacrificing entire legions of soldiers in the process.

But, now that Steel thought about it, his Legion was infamous, precisely for the number of casualties they took before Perturabo took control of the Legion and decimated them by making them play the Decimus. One of each ten Astartes, by dumb luck, will have to be beaten to the death by the other nine members of the squad. There is no need to say that did not sit well among the Iron Warriors, especially when they replenished the loses with Olympian natives. But before anything serious happened, Perturabo put things clear. Every one of the Iron Warriors was his, and only his, to kill or punish, anyone who tried to broke that rule would be beaten to the death by Perturabo itself.

On the worst side of things, Perturabo´s command still caused untold amount of casualties in each campaign they took part, up to a point where the Crusade started to send him entire ships filled to the brim with Penal Legion soldiers; more know as the scum and the worst of the galaxy; but for Perturabo they were nice flesh shields to use in any siege. Only the best and the most ruthless of those bastards were offered the chance to join the Astartes, passing the procedure that turned them into mockeries of a true Astartes, as most of them were too old for the procedure.

"Maybe not". Nodded Steel, reabsorbing his armor and weapons back into his body and the Servo-Harness in his back. "But I still need a war, and this one will do nicely".

Magenta Field Hospital/ Vale

Turns out, Steel was right and wrong about the technology of this world. They do have a lot of advance tech, specially in the weapons' department, however, they are sorely dependent on Dust. Steel, could understand as the Imperium was heavily reliant on Promethium, Plasma and Fusion Tech, however, that three technologies, were eons ahead of the Dust. Dust maybe tremendously adaptable, capable of be manipulated in all kind of manners to produce all kind of effects, but you need tremendous amounts of Dust to produce bigger results.

After some experimenting with Electric and Fire Dust, Steel concluded that they seriously need to learn how to create Fusion and Plasma generators, it was like those planets on where they were dependent of charcoal, once the mines go dry, they were left in the open. With the Grimm sniffing around, if the Dust mines went dry, it would be a catastrophe. But a laser rifle has any of those problems, it can be recharged by setting it under the sun, or in desperate cases, throw the battery into a bonfire and it would recharge, it would shorten the maximum capacity of the rifle but it will recharge.

So far, there was no energy weapons developed in Remnant, they had some interesting ideas, but between the heavy Dust related dependency and the underdevelopment that some critical system were; an energy weapon was nothing but a pipe dream so far. Except for Steel of course, who could fabricate laser, plasma and fusion weapons, if he found the adequate resources and materials to created the necessary parts for the weapons. Still, Steel loved this Mecha-shift tech, that would have come quite handy during the Crusade, Bolters capable of folding into power weapons, Heavy weapons compacted into comfortable packs to be carried anywhere with easiness, yes, that would have been magnificent.

As soon as the hunters pack get back into the Hospital, Steel waled into the Radio tent, seriously freaking out the radio operator, and with a couple of manipulations with this mechadendrites here and there, the Radio was as good as new. Even better, as it can now pick up signals ten times further than it could before. Alexander was smiling like a kid when they finally connected with the High Command on this zone of the conflict. The smile didn't last much, as they were advised to pick the wounded and get the hell out of there, before an extermination squad from the Repressionist found their way there.

Steel eyed the truck that they had in the place, and raised and eyebrow, that thing would not even make the fist kilometer without tearing itself apart. The metal was rusty and fragile, the motor was a bloody joke, the wheels have seen better days and even if they had enough space in the back for all the wounded, with the suspension in the state it was, it would be like a roller coaster for them. Not the best thing for wounded people, their stitches will fly like splinters in the first bump of the road.

So, Steel got to work. He was a Warsmith and a Heretek, give him enough materials and he would make a Grox fly and shoot plasma from his ass. In this case, Steel ripped apart some the defenses of the Field Hospital and turn them into armor for the truck. Practically creating a new engine with the parts he had at hand; and some extra that he created from his own body; Obliterator Virus was the panacea of technical difficulties, if one doesn't mind the pain and losing some weight in the process; and reinforcing the wheels with new rubber from the hospital supplies and metal nails, just in case.

In all, it was a very bad joke of a transport, with armor that could be pierced by a grenade launcher and poorly armed with a couple of stubbers from the towers. But beggars can't be choosers, so Steel payed the entire day creating the evacuation vehicle and thinking about how half the Adeptus Mechanicus would have a stroke at the sight of the vehicle. It was far from a Rhino transport or even a Chimera tank, but it should do the trick.

Alexander and Vérde gaped like fish when they saw the truck, the next morning; Steel on the other hand, was just bored, heating a tankard of a very watered down Cafeeine with a little scorcher he created at the tip of a mechadendrite from his Servo-Harness. He ended the truck in for to five hours during the night; passing the rest three hours before sun rise, checking the internal armory and the exact limits that his Obliterator Virus had. After all, it was the real, first moment of peace he had since he had arrived at this planet or universe, not entirely sure if Remnant was part of his universe, or he has been sent to another plane entirely.

Thing is, that now that they had an appropriate vehicle, the wounded and the non-combatant personnel could evacuate, a day before the exterminators come and kill them all, however, Alexander, wanted to sent a message. One thing was to fight among soldiers, it was in their job description, but hunting down civilians, people whose job was to patch up any wounded, no matter the side, was something that Alexander found despicable.

Curiosity of the war in Remnant:

No matter what side you are, Grimm always will be everybody enemies and hostilities will be put aside in front of a Grimm attack, later they can kill each other at will, but Grimm have priority. That leads to some confuse and almost organic movements of troops, on where you can be shooting at both, human and Grimm at a second notice. Grimm doesn't have that problem, they bust in; teeth and claws always ready; butchering everything in their path, until they have killed everyone.

Alexander wanted the Repressionist to realize that attacking civilians and non-combatants was off the table. No one is stupid enough to kill valuable and key personnel, knowing that the war between Humans and Faunus was just the prelude of another, never-ending for the moment, battle with the Grimm. Who were growing in numbers and powers, with the constant influx of negative emotions that the war created. Steel knew that this was a unique scenario, on where battles were only the prelude to other battles, it was the first time he has seen something like this. Still, he was with Alexander in the idea that targeting key personnel could be great in any other circumstances, but with the Grimm always looming over the head, like a Damocles sword; killing such vital people, medics, engineers, architects, and the such, was not only a waste, but a complete suicide.

Alexander and the others, that can use Dust and Aura to fight, were not that abundant to squander them like cannon fodder. As much as the common Joe would love to believe, professional Aura users were not that abundant. In a sense, they were like Astartes, powerful as hell individually but even an entire Legion of Astartes, who numbers in the one hundred thousand Battle-brothers, with high variation depending on the specific Legion, were a tiny drop in the ocean that could be the armies of a Hive World. Even a little Hive of twenty million inhabitants could easily recruit a million capable combatants in case of invasion. In Remnant, for each Aura user, there will be a hundred civilians of more. Without adequate data, Steel was unable to formulate a theory about what could possible was the exact number of Aura users in Remnant. However, he was pretty sure that the entire world would be inhabited by less than a billion people, with the constant Grimm interference and assassinations, the population should be maintained, contained and protected in cities and fortresses that could hold the black beasts off.

Speaking of the Grimm, after the news of the Extermination squad come in, the appearances and attacks of the beast has increased, validating the theory that they are attracted by negative emotions. Steel mentally compared them with low level daemons, Furies and the such, creatures that were spawned, or puked would be more correct, from the Warp when emotions are high and the psykers are close by.

Aura was like a beacon for them, or so said Vérde, who tried to give some lessons to Steel without shivering under the steely glare of the giant, between his monkish appearance, his capability of creating weapons out of nothing and his ugly face, he was a very intimidating person. Anyhow, Steel tried to be as polite and educate as he could with the Chameleon Faunus. She was scared of him, seriously scared; although all the other Aura users were too; after she saw the miracles he had under his sleeves. From repairing a disaster of a truck into an armored transport, to vaporize a Ursa with an energy cannon, something that so far was into the realm of Sci-fi more than any scientific development.

Steel on the other hand, listened attentively to the explanations of the woman, she was a slender girl of greenish hair, with the circular retinas of a Chameleon; without being bulging eyes; and angular face, always dressed in comfortable military clothes and her sniper rifle on her back. It was a good piece of warfare, bullets, ten bullets clip, capable of beheading a Beowolf at half a mile away without any problem. In all, she was proud that Alexander has trusted her with the best piece of equipment her squad, under the leadership of Alexander Arc, had. For Steel it was just common sense, she was capable of mimic herself with the surroundings, perfectly camouflaging herself. Unfortunately, it did not hide her heat signature and anyone with Thermal sensors should be able to pick her up. On the bright side, there was few that carried such and expensive and advance piece of equipment, much less in the middle of this war, who forced both sides to travel lightly and swiftly from place to place.

As the former Iron Warrior learned more about this place called Remnant, more lose it any kind of common sense. Grimm apart, those pest are nothing that can not be exterminated with enough firepower and discipline, the war between the Individualism and the Represionist factions, was a bit too close to home for Steel. His own upbringing was practically the wet dream of the Represionist, however, Steel knows pretty well how that clusterfuck ended; cough, Horus Heresy, Iron Wars, cough; so he was not eager to see the same shit happens in his new backyard. Still, he had his doubts, doubts that came from his sour attitude and his thousands of years of disappointments. His opinion was heavily biased, so much, he can admit. One does not endure thousands of years of hate and warfare without souring its mood greatly, but even among his peers, he was called the Embittered.

This conflict was something that hit too close to home, to be comfortable with. It was akin to the Horus Heresy all again, and even if it was in their most basic levels. No one should be stupid enough to call the oppressive Imperial government as something even akin to the Individualism faction; the eternal slavery and torment of the Chaos was even worse. Over the paper, and judging from the circumstances that seems to made the day to day horrors of this Remnant Planet, the Repressionist faction could be adequate to deal with the Grimm menace and the such. A powerful, centered, government that could deal with the menaces everywhere without delay and without borders or jurisdictions sounds relatively good. The problem will be that all will be rigid in their thinking patrons and strategist.

Grimm, as they grow older, become clever bastards, adapting and learning. If the hunters always use the same tricks over and over, that would mean that they would adapt and without any real innovative thinking, those black and white pests would overrun anything on their path quite easily. In a sense, Steel considered them akin to the Orks, they could look idiots, but they are way more clever that they appeared to be. In their madness and apparent bestiality, they were clever and cunning. Never underestimate the bastards, and Steel was adopting the same politics with this Grimm.

In resume, Steel was in doubt, a state that embittered him even more, and called forth more Grimm, that he happily butchered to shreds. Reaper cannon, what would have he done without that wonderful contraption of war?, or his trusted Thunder Hammer and Cyclon launchers. Not to mention how plasma and laser were always solid and welcome choices when something big, like those big ass scorpions, came to play.

Still, the mind of Steel pondered between grabbing this planet by the throat and subdue it into something akin to a worthy military or simply build a space ship for himself and get the hell out of this strange and backwater planet before they managed to exterminate themselves or serve themselves on a silver platter to the Grimm, far more organized that they would like to think.

Then; and Steel mentally chalked that as another form the Emperor had to made his life more bitter; Alexander come and invited him to accompany them to the home town of the leader of the Camp. The place that gave birth to the Arcs and where they had established themselves, as protectors. It was a valley under a big mountain that protected them for the Grimm and gave them the natural resources they need to live.

Steel sighed and smiled wickedly at the same time when Alexander gave him the name of the place.

Olympia.


End file.
